Acts Chapter 6:1-15

There is going to be a test.

And maybe it will come from weird places like here. Maybe you stepped out and you started serving the sparkle. You're supposed to come by here Saturday. And you get ready to come by here. And maybe your spouse, somebody in the family, what are you doing? Well, I'm going to clean the church.

What are you doing that for? Well, because I'm supposed to. Eh, don't stay home.

Don't be doing that. I want you to stay here. Well, I made a commitment.

I told them I would be there. Oh, golly. Sometimes it comes from weird places. But the life lesson here, there will be resistance as you serve the Lord. There will be resistance as you serve the Lord. I've been in ministry for a number of years.

And this is the one thing I know for sure and I can take for granted. There's going to be resistance. When you step out and serve the Lord, you're going to hit some resistance. And sometimes it's going to come from unforeseen places and corners.

Maybe from people that you thought would be encouraging you or giving you the resistance. But that's part of the testing and that's part of what strengthens us as we serve the Lord. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. As Christians, we are called to serve the Lord. Often as we step out to serve, we find resistance in waiting. Today, Pastor David helps us overcome that resistance as he continues teaching in the book of Acts, chapter 6, with part two of his teaching, chosen to serve.

In the last chapter we were covering, we saw that there were some pretty major setbacks, if you will, with Ananias and Sapphira. And actually because of their hypocrisy, they fell over dead. And so the church, though, came through it. And once again, they brought the disciples in front of the Jewish leadership and they warned them not to speak about Jesus. And they threw them in prison. The Lord set them free from prison. They went right back to the temple. They didn't learn anything and started telling about Jesus again. So that kind of brings us to where we are now in chapter 6, verse 1.

It says, Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Now there were two main parties, if you will, of Jewish people at this point. There were those who spoke Hebrew and there were those who had been Hellenized. And one term under Alexander the Great, he conquered Israel in about 323 B.C. And when he did that, you know, what he wanted to do is spread the Greek language, Greek philosophy and culture all over the world.

And he did the same thing in Israel. So many of the people ended up speaking Greek. Now, some of that was good. Some of it was bad. Some of it was just stuff that we still deal with in the church as far as Greek philosophy as opposed to more Hebraic philosophy.

But that's what's going on. So it's interesting to me that they're all Jewish, and yet already you've got these factions happening. Well, I speak Greek. Well, I speak Hebrew. I don't speak Greek. Well, I don't speak Hebrew.

And you've got that going on. What a shame that is. Guys, there's no place in the body of Christ for this kind of garbage. And you know what? There's no place in this body of Christ for that kind of stuff. We need to love each other and realize, and especially, it horrifies me when I hear of a church having racial discrimination. Guys, that's from the pit of hell. I mean, that has nothing to do with Jesus.

Verse 2, it says, Then the Twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. Now, look what they're looking for.

They're looking for good reputation. In some versions it says honest. That's good. And it says filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom. And it says, and they've never made a mistake and will never make a mistake, right? Your version doesn't say that?

No, it's not in there. See, a lot of times we think that our spiritual leaders are never supposed to make a mistake. Now, how unfair is that? Because, you know, the only time that you won't make a mistake, the only people that don't make a mistake are the people that don't do anything. And if you're not doing anything, you're making the biggest mistake of all. So understand that spiritual leaders are going to make mistakes, but you know what? Their heart is towards the Lord or should be towards the Lord. They're not saying, well, this is a menial task or anything like that.

They're just saying, you know what? We need to come up with a solution. And in verse 3, they come up with a solution of delegating.

And D.L. Moody said it's much better to get 10 men to do work than to try to do the work of 10 men. It's a wise thing.

D.L. Moody was a wise man or wise minister, wise pastor. And this is the thing that is a continual challenge here that, you know, to give away ministry is the term that I use. I love to see people raised up into ministry. And it's interesting because, you know, everybody on our staff has been raised up from this body.

You know, we didn't go to ministryjobs.com or something. These people were in this body. They served the Lord. We recognized they were serving the Lord. We encouraged them in serving the Lord.

And then they came on staff. And that's an awesome thing. Now, and as we do this, there's a saying that we're also fond of. Blessed are the flexible. They shall not be broken. So as you step out to serve the Lord, be sure that you maintain that flexibility. Now, we're going to learn some more stuff about that as we continue on verse 4. It says, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit and Philip and Prochorus, Nicronora, Timon, Permanus, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. Now, what we're going to see is Stephen and Philip in the book of Acts. Man, they're going to be very significant. They're going to be very significant. God is going to use them in a very special way.

Let's see what happens. In verse 6 it says, in whom they sat before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Now, notice what you don't see here.

Because with the Bible, as you study the Bible, often it's as important what's not in there as what's in there. And here's what you don't see in here. You don't see these guys standing off to the side going, I don't really feel like feeding the widows. I don't need something else. These guys are like, God, you want to use me? Awesome. You want to use me to feed the widows? Great. I'm all for it. I'm gung ho. I'm all over it.

Let's go for it. That's important. Here's the thing. And the Bible speaks to this a lot. And we really need to understand this as a church and as individual believers, understand servant leadership. In 1 Corinthians 4, 1, and 2, it says, let a man so consider us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. Again, we have this faithful concept weaving its way through us and weaving its way through scripture. 1 Timothy 1, 12. And I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Guys, there's a lesson in there for each and every one of us.

How does this affect us? Well, let me, let me share something. When we started the fellowship, I did something that some people didn't quite understand and maybe still don't understand. What I did is anytime anybody wanted to serve, whether it was on the worship team or help teach or whatever, I'd ask them to help join the cleanup crew.

We call it sparkle. And some people didn't like that. They took exception to that.

And so immediately that sent a red flag to me. Oh, I want to do this specific thing. I don't necessarily want to serve where I'm needed.

I want to do this specific thing. Well, you know, as servants of God, we should be willing to serve wherever and do whatever. And if you have a struggle with that, of what I just said, loved one, please examine that. Examine that. Here's the thing. If you limit the way God can use you in small things, you limit the way God will use you in large things.

Let me say that again. If you limit the way God can use you in small things, you limit the way God will use you in large things. A couple more verses. Colossians 3 17 says, and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, given thanks to God, the father through him. Colossians 3 23 says, and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, not to men, knowing from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ. That is such a key in ministry. Because if you start out in ministry to serve other people, you're going to find yourself a crispy critter. You're going to get burned out and cynical and all these things. But if you understand it's God you're serving, see, because occasionally people might not appreciate your ministry as much as you think they should. And if you're doing it just for people, you will lose that motivation. But if you're doing it for God, you're always doing it, knowing that God sees everything and it says here, you will receive the reward from God. Verse seven says, then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

This is an awesome thing. There's a saying that healthy sheep reproduce healthy sheep. And here's what that means. That if people are being fed the word of God, they realize that evangelism is important. As people are fed the word of God, they understand that inviting people to hear the word of God is important.

You know, what I want to do is I want to encourage you to invite other people. And I want you to see that the Bible is plain about reaching out to other people. We want to reach out to the lost and those who are disillusioned through, you know, through church, maybe got hurt in a church. We want to reach out to them and then we want to teach. We want to teach the Bible, not all the books about the Bible. There's some great books out there about the Bible. We want to teach the Bible itself and that's what we're going to continue to do. And you'll hear, reach and teach a lot. And here's another thing you'll hear that we want to see unbelievers become believers and those believers become disciples.

That's what we want to see. We don't want to just see people get saved and go, okay, our job's done because that's not what Jesus did. He told us to go make disciples. We want to see those believers then become disciples. So that's what we're about. We're about seeing unbelievers become believers and those believers become disciples. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment. But I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for him.

You need someone to present God's Word to him. Every day we're presenting God's Word to him here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones.

What an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A. Brown Hey, guys, we want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Ashland, Oregon, and Baker City, Brookings, Canyonville, Cave Junction, Cloverdale, and Colton.

Lord, we thank you for these cities and everyone listening. Lord, we pray that you would pour out your Spirit on these broadcast audiences. Father, we pray that pastors would have wisdom in these cities on how to love their communities. Lord, I pray that people would put their trust in you.

God, I pray that you would give the governmental leaders wisdom and discernment, that you would protect these cities, Father, that there would be peace in these cities, and Lord, that your word would be high and lifted up in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Let's read on verse 8, and Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

How cool is that? This man, just a few verses, and guys, let me help you. It doesn't usually happen this quick, doesn't happen just a couple of verses later. But this guy was willing to wait on tables, and because he was willing to wait on tables, God used him in a huge way. And Stephen was very gifted. We're going to see next week in looking at chapter 7, we're going to see Stephen's an incredible teacher. I mean, the way he lays this teaching out, and there was a young man there by the name of Saul that was profoundly affected by this teaching, we're going to see Stephen as quite the teacher.

But notice Stephen was willing to wait on tables, and God raised him up. See, we all have different giftings. You have unique giftings. The combination of your giftings and your talents is like nobody else's in this room. And what that does is it causes you to look at situations a little different than everybody else.

Let me explain it like this. If Pastor Shawn came out here to bring me a glass of water, and he tripped and he fell and he spilled the water, we would have a lot of different thoughts about that. And the way you would think about that indicates somewhat your spiritual gifting. In other words, let's say you're gifted in prophecy. You look at Pastor Shawn and you go, well, I knew he was going to spill it.

Or maybe in the sense of prophecy being a teaching gift, well, he really should have had the gift. He should have had the glass with both hands and walking more carefully because I thought there might be a problem. Or maybe your gift is ministering or service, then you just thought, oh, well, he spilled it. I'll get a mop. I'll clean that up.

You don't have to worry about that. It naturally begins to manifest itself. Or maybe teaching, you know, if you're teaching gift, you know, you say, well, you know, Pastor Shawn, the glass of water in the Greek means, you know, or whatever, and, you know, explaining about that. You would begin to manifest what your gift is. Or maybe your gift is giving. You look and go, oh, well, we need a new glass because that one's broken.

Where'd you get the glass? I'll go buy another one, you know, or go get another bottle of water or whatever, or pay for that. Or maybe ruling or administration is your gift. You look at that and go, hey, you should have a lid on it. You know, we should have lids on things that are in the sanctuary. And so that begins to manifest or maybe mercy. Your gift of mercy, you'd be like, Pastor Shawn, I'm so sorry that happened. You know, I've spilled lots of water before and maybe you'll get water next time and you won't spill it like that, you know, and so you would be manifesting that gift of mercy.

And that's awesome the way the body of Christ comes together like that. But here's part of the thing. You'll look at a situation different than anybody else. In other words, you might walk through something in the church and go, well, that really needs to be addressed or, you know, this person really needs ministry or something. And maybe you think, well, God is showing me this so I can complain about this or whine about that.

Oh, wait a minute. Maybe God is showing you that because he wants you to make a difference and he wants you to walk in that gifting and begin to walk in mercy or teaching or giving or administration or whatever it is. And you can often understand, often your perspective on an event or an occurrence is totally unique. And the body of Christ, as we join together like that, we see the benefit of the body of Christ. And we're referred to the body of Christ.

You understand that? We're referred to as the body of Christ. First of all, the body of Jesus was conceived miraculously.

And I think the churches are conceived miraculously. And you know what else you'd never see in scripture? You never see Jesus, and this is gonna sound a little weird, but bear with me for a second. You never see Jesus, his leg falling asleep. It doesn't say, well, and then Jesus was going to walk and do something, but his leg was asleep. So he sat back down.

What's your point, pastor David? What happens when your leg falls asleep? Men do that, they do that a lot, but your leg falls asleep.

What do you do? Well, you try to get up and you're trying to walk, but you can't really. And then, you know, invariably somebody goes, what's wrong with your leg? What'd you do? Oh, it's nothing.

It's asleep. It's okay. And the body of Christ is not supposed to be like that. But somewhere along the line, man, we bought into this consumer mentality that we go to the church to get. And see, if you come to the church and you get poured into, you should begin to pour out because too often in the body of Christ, these people say, well, I'm not going to serve. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that.

I want to serve in my own way. And the body of Christ is hindered by that right there. You never see that in the Bible and you know what? In church too often, I know pastors that would be tickled to death if 10% of the body was serving because they have much less than that here. I don't know.

I hadn't looked at it lately. We run 30, 40, 50% of the people that come here serve. That's more of a biblical model. I think part of it is they're being fed. And so once they're being poured into, they want to pour back out verse nine.

Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the Friedman, Serenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia disputing with Stephen. So of course here's, you know, people leaders, you're going to be tested when you step out in the ministry, understand you're going to be tested. There is going to be a test and maybe it'll come from weird places like here. Maybe you stepped out and you started serving a sparkle and you're supposed to come by here Saturday and you get ready to come by here and maybe your spouse, somebody in fact, what are you doing? Well, I'm going to clean the church. What are you doing that for? Well, cause I'm supposed to stay home.

Don't be doing that. I want you to stay here. Well, I made a commitment, told them I would be there.

Oh, Cali. Sometimes it comes from weird places, but the life lesson here, there will be resistance as you serve the Lord. There will be resistance as you serve the Lord. I've been in ministry for a number of years and this was the one thing I know for sure and I can take for granted.

There's going to be resistance. When you step out and serve the God and serve the Lord, you're going to hit some resistance and sometimes it's going to, it's going to come from unforeseen places and corners. Maybe from people that you thought would be encouraging you are giving you the resistance, but that's part of the testing and that's part of what strengthens us as we serve the Lord. Let's read on verse 10 and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by what you spoke. He was gifted as a teacher at verse 11.

Then they secretly induced men to say, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. You see how damaging we can be sometimes I say we, I understand I can, I can damage this body by things I do things I say. And you need to understand that as well. I've been talking about serving the Lord. Understand there's a battle going on. God desires for you to serve him. There is a very real enemy that wants you to serve him that wants to use you. And so there's this battle going on as Bob Dylan said, you know that song here, you got to serve somebody. It might be the Lord or it might be the devil, but you got to serve somebody and that's what's before everyone. Are we going to be used by God? Are we going to be used by our selfish nature and perhaps by the enemy?

Be careful because all of us have the potential for either one. And if they happened here in this early church, this is days away from the ascension of Jesus. If they happened in this church, why are we surprised they happened today?

I don't know why that catches us off guard. I know sometimes it still catches me off guard a little bit, but if it happened here in this early church, how's this going to happen in this church? Just keep serving the Lord. Verse 12, and they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized him and brought him to the council. And they also set up false witnesses who said, this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. They were misquoting and misconstruing what he had said. In verse 14, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.

Verse 15, and all who sat in the council looking steadfastly at him saw his face as the face of an angel. Stephen was called before them, and he was going to present the gospel, he was going to use the opportunity, but while he's before them, he's not ministering in other ways to other people. And that's what happens in ministry, you get pulled away to put out fires instead of reaching people.

But that's part of the strategy. And then notice they mix kind of a half-truth in with, you know, Jesus came to fulfill the law. He did come to change things, but not to do away with the law. Jesus himself said that. And here's the thing, as we look through this, if this body could look at the early church in some of these ways and become these Acts 6 people, God, I want to serve you however you need me, however you want to use me. We think we can't trust God that if we do that, he's going to do something horrible that if you hate the cold, he's going to send you to Alaska or something, you know, if you step out and serve him or wherever, I don't mean to pick on Alaskans.

But nothing could be further from the truth. But there is an attitude of God, I'll do whatever, you know, if you've ever been in the military, they do something interesting. They give you a piece of paper and they say, write the three places that you really want to go, you know, and where you really want to be stationed. Then they take the piece of paper and they throw it away and they put you wherever they need you.

That's kind of what they do. Well, in a sense, that's what the Lord does, but he ends up placing you in the place that he knows you're gifted in and you'll be blessed in because friend, he knows far better than you are and he'll put you in that perfect place. Let your heart be open to that. And even as that might've been a challenge talking about sparkle, let your heart be open to serving the Lord in whatever way he would have you to serve him. Because here's the thing, these men, their hearts were closed in heart because it says Stephen's face shown like an angel had their hearts had been opened, they would have looked at his face shining and thought, boy, this is familiar where this happened before somewhere. And they would have remembered that the last man that this happened to was Moses.

And they would have thought, you know what? Maybe this man is from God. Maybe the Lord did send him to us to share these things with us, but their hearts were closed as your heart closed this morning because the Lord sent me to share these things with you. And I do it in sincerity.

I do it in transparency. I do it in love. But is your heart open to the things you're hearing this morning? Do you understand everybody, every relationship with the Lord starts at the cross? I want to be clear because I've been talking about serving and I don't want anybody to think, well, does that mean if I get in that sparkle that I'm going to heaven? Yes. No, I'm kidding.

That doesn't mean it. The way your sins are forgiven is you ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things, I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven, you've been born again.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at PO Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27117, and share how God is working in your life.

You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge. Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.